


Lyrical Memory (The Blackout Drunk Remix)

by Sole_Sakuma



Category: Arashi (Band)
Genre: Community: jentfic_remix, Drunkenness, M/M, Remix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-17
Updated: 2012-10-17
Packaged: 2017-11-15 07:37:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/524806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sole_Sakuma/pseuds/Sole_Sakuma
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nino and Jun both know what they're doing and know how to play, but play the same game completely differently.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lyrical Memory (The Blackout Drunk Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Lyrical Memory](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/11854) by ltgmars. 



> I really hope you like this, [](http://ltgmars.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://ltgmars.livejournal.com/)**ltgmars**! I know my prose is not as great as yours, but still!

It's just Nino's cramped bedroom, Jun tells himself, but he's never been there before. He thinks Aiba has, probably even before Arashi was formed. Maybe they played games or maybe they just talked - but Aiba talking and Nino playing games sounds like the most plausible theory. Aiba is a natural fit for Nino's small, sparse bedroom. Jun isn't.

'Wanna play a game, Nino?' he says.

Nino mumbles something that almost manages to cross Jun's foggy mind, but it doesn't. It probably was just a mean joke anyway.

They're just drunk teenagers, not even friends. Jun flexes his hand, just to check if it's still there - hands sometimes wander where they shouldn't. For example, Jun's hand itches to explore the place where Nino's shoulder meets his neck. It probably has a name, but all Jun can think about right now is the vague yearning to outline Nino's contours with his fingers.

Jun clenches his fist and then closes his eyes. There's a slight humming coming from the first floor and Nino's voice is a constant whisper of non-sense. It's comforting, even if it's unfamiliar and new.

'I said I think we're always playing games,' Nino repeats.

Jun frowns, eyes still closed. A game. Games have rules and if Nino followed the rules – Jun’s rules about what people are supposed to be and how their minds are supposed to fit -, he wouldn’t be nearly as interesting.

'Then I hope at least we're having fun,’ he says, after thinking for a while.

Nino giggles – he does, like a schoolgirl, and Jun is going to tease him about that when he’s sober – and Jun decides not to remember anything about that day.

It's just a cramped bedroom. They're just drunk teenagers. But Jun, even when he's drunk and even before anything happens, knows something has shifted.

*

Jun knows it was a bad idea. He has known that from the moment Nino flashed _that_ smile. They all know, but Nino's bad, terrible, inadvisable ideas also tend to be the kind of scandalous, don't-let-the-tabloids-know adventures that could fill an entire shelf of unauthorized biographies. And while they might not be teenagers anymore, they're still _drunk_.

It's the kind of anecdote people parade in variety shows for the rest of their lives and they would do that - or at least they'd construct a version that does not, actually, sully their image and allows them to keep their dignities intact and their criminal records clean -, except that none of them quite remember.

There was a bar involved, of course, and at least some pretty girls. At some point, they were kisses and probably groping as well - but the girls may have already left by then. Aiba swears there was a giraffe, Sho swears there was snow. Jun remembers the smooth surface of a leather couch and somebody's hand up his shirt. He remembers being terrified of Sho's finding out that something had happened to his shower.

The morning after, they all look like hell.

'We should become a punk band,' Nino says.

'Well, you trashed my apartment like we were one.'

'Sorry about your shower.' Jun's voice is raspy and he doesn't quite recognize himself. He'd say it's the hangover, but it's more than that - he's older now and he doesn't recognize himself all the time.

'You'll pay for it, Matsumoto,' Sho says and Jun stops being terrified of Sho's finding out, but he's still terrified of what he doesn't remember.

'So, does anybody remember what actually happened, then?' he asks, immediately despising his pleading tone.

'It was just a game,' Nino says and Jun pretends to find that soothing.

*

There's a code behind everything Nino does. Or at least Jun enjoys thinking that. So it's not just a random hat and it's not just _lyrics_. There's something below the surface and Jun only catches glimpses of it and instead of just letting it be, he tries to piece those glimpses together.

It's like a maddening jigsaw of half-said truths and well-constructed lies – and lies are even more informative than the truth, Jun thinks, and the games we play are as important as the prizes.

*

He hopes to open his eyes and find Nino sleeping like a cat - basking in the sunshine, getting closer to steal Jun's warmth -, but he suspects he won't. There's filming, of course, and responsibilities to take into account and emotional avoidance to consider. Complications.

That's the word. There are Complications. It's probably Nino's real name.

And if Jun wakes up, if he opens his eyes and Nino's not there, it will be even more complicated. And if he is still there, if he overslept or - even more daunting - chose to stay, then Jun wouldn't know what to do.

So he tries to will himself asleep again. He fails, of course he does, because his biological clock is as stubborn as he is and it is time to wake up.

Nino is, thankfully, not there, but his warmth still lingers on the bed.

He's not in the apartment either - of course he's not - but at least, Jun thinks, at least he spent the night.

Jun's not naive enough to expect to find him cooking breakfast and, anyway, he has eaten Nino's breakfasts before and, frankly, prefers his own, so an empty kitchen is a relief.  
What Jun doesn't expect to find is Nino's guitar, carefully leaning on the sofa. There's a note. Jun takes it and folds it in his pocket.

It burns him - the curiosity and the anger. Because Nino has no right to change the rules, not this late into the game. Not when it best suits him. But burning and fearing are better than knowing, so he just keeps it in his pocket, imagining a thousand possible messages, a thousand possible explanations.

Nino never mentions the guitar, except he plays it when he comes over and soon t-shirts and pants that Jun knows are not his fill his closet and there's a chipped mug with a raunchy joke on his cupboard and not only have the rules changed, it's not even a game anymore.  
But, then again, Nino has never played by the rules.


End file.
